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Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (2001)

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This is a blast from the past. 2001 to be precise. I can't quite believe it that's old. The game does not appear to be available on any digital services so I've installed the game from my original discs (the expansion version). Seems to work well after following the guide on this wiki apart from some weird exits to the main menu suddenly without warning.

On the holodeck, attempting to run any of the programs while in the Virtual Voyager tour exits to the main menu. Likewise I went from deck 2 to 1 then back to 2, then 3 and 4 and when I tried to go to deck 5 it dropped me back to the main menu. So I tried deck 5 then 8 (there is no 6 and 7), 9, 10 and 11 and they all drop me back to the main menu. Now I'm stuck on deck 4 unable to go back to deck 1, 2 or 3 because the same thing happens. Now I can't complete this Virtual tour part of the game.

I'm wondering now whether the main game will work or not, haven't tried it yet. Any ideas? If this game was on GOG or Steam I'd have posted this on there, this forum seems to be the only place to do it.

EDIT

I should also point out Alt-Tab doesn't work in this game, making debugging difficult (such as setting CPU affinity).

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I should also point out Alt-Tab doesn't work in this game, making debugging difficult (such as setting CPU affinity).

Once you start using 2 screens, you don't want to go back^^ :D

But aside from it - it's a weird issue. I have honestly not experienced it - I can run any of the programs on holodeck an go to any other deck from deck 4. It seems like your issue has something to do with loading maps - maybe it's an issue of files virtualization? Because for me, it seems like when you go to deck 4, the game loads a virtuallized map and then, when you try to load any other deck or program on holodeck, the game can't find any of the other maps in the same folder and just send you to menu. That would be my guess.

Check out %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore (just type this a a folder path and see if there is a location identical to a one you've installed the game in - that is if your game is in C:\Program Files\Activision\Star Trek Elite Force, then look for Program Files\Activision\Star Trek Elite Force inside of %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore).

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Check out %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore (just type this a a folder path and see if there is a location identical to a one you've installed the game in - that is if your game is in C:\Program Files\Activision\Star Trek Elite Force, then look for Program Files\Activision\Star Trek Elite Force inside of %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore).

wouldn't be better to simply run the game as administrator?

i think it's a better solution than relying on redirecting

to the OP

If you want to really debug something, you had better run it in windowed mode

and if you still experience problems.. I would suggest you to monitor the game runtime (and loading process) with process monitor

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The VirtualStore folder in AppData is empty but what does this have to do with the game?!

Elite Force is installed on my E drive not on C. My C drive is an SSD that I use mainly as my boot drive. Perhaps this is a cause of the maps not loading?

The games maps are stored in the pak0.pk3 file, there are 156 files in here, .bsp, .nav, .aas and .sqd. There's also another 10 map files in pak1.pk3 and 44 in pak3.pk3 along with a "tour" folder containing 20 files by deck number. There all there so why can't the game find them and why doesn't it just crash if it can't find them rather than just send me back to the main menu?

Looks like I'm not going to be able to play this again. It's been many years since I first played it - I was kind of hoping it would be on GOG or Steam.

@Mirh I can't run it in Windowed mode and I disabled UAC long ago so everything runs as administrator.

EDIT

I just tried extracting the map folders into the games root directory but it still fails to load any deck level other than the one I'm on. I still haven't tried the main game yet but my guess is the same thing will happen. So that didn't work. Also the game is now in windowed mode, randomly by itself which is pointless because Alt-Tab still doesn't work and neither do the windows keys, the game obviously disables them.

Is there a console command to load levels?

EDIT EDIT

I found the problem, well the cause anyway. Going to deck 4 causes the problem. Once I've gone to deck 4 if I then I try any other deck the game goes back to the main menu. It's like that episode of Voyager where the same decks keep appearing! Perhaps that's what it is, my game is in a temporal flux caused my a tachyon energy burst!

And obviously your version should be ST:V EF v. 120 (unless, I've missed some patch - but this one seems to be working fine).

Split pk3 files shouldn't be a problem. From what I remember, Quake 2 and Quake 3 engine loads files alphabetically, so it loads - pak0.pk3, pak1.pk3, etc. if there was a file z_pak.pk3 - it's going to be loaded the last. This also means, that if you were to have two of the same maps in two different pak files, the game is going to use the map from a pk3 file it loads up later - I really liked that about Quake 3 engine - sometimes, you could just look through pk3 and check what files changed between patches :D

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Hmm, I don't know how to use this but I got this out from pak0.pk3, 1e02db89c028abbd5ee126ef6531eee2

pak1.pk3 gives cadb1e9e297bc0ae15656f3cb5455ae6

pak2.pk3 is cadb1e9e297bc0ae15656f3cb5455ae6 which appears to be the same, though I get a message that Files does NOT match clipboard hash! what ever that means

pak3.pk3 is the same as pak2.pk3....hold on I just realised they're all the same.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

On a side note I played the main game up until Telsia "dies" and the game returns to the main menu. In fact at any time on this level I press Esc it goes back to the main menu and not in the in-game menu...which means I can't save. Which also means I lost that progress in the game.

This really isn't worth the hassle, I've uninstalled it and may as well throw the discs away since it doesn't work any more.

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Hmm, I don't know how to use this but I got this out from pak0.pk3, 1e02db89c028abbd5ee126ef6531eee2

pak1.pk3 gives cadb1e9e297bc0ae15656f3cb5455ae6

pak2.pk3 is cadb1e9e297bc0ae15656f3cb5455ae6 which appears to be the same, though I get a message that Files does NOT match clipboard hash! what ever that means

pak3.pk3 is the same as pak2.pk3....hold on I just realised they're all the same.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

On a side note I played the main game up until Telsia "dies" and the game returns to the main menu. In fact at any time on this level I press Esc it goes back to the main menu and not in the in-game menu...which means I can't save. Which also means I lost that progress in the game.

This really isn't worth the hassle, I've uninstalled it and may as well throw the discs away since it doesn't work any more.